


Welcome To The Halcyon Hotel

by SugarButterBandstand



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-20 17:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30008358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarButterBandstand/pseuds/SugarButterBandstand
Summary: American reporter Lyra Gaynor is sent to London to write an article about The Halcyon Hotel, a historic hotel destroyed by a bomb on it's 50th anniversary in 1940. Locked in her room, learning about the buildings history, Lyra is introduced to the very people who made the hotel what it once was, the staff and guests who also fell victim to the bombing.
Relationships: Joe O'Hara/OC
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Lyra sweetly thanked the cab driver as she finished unloading her luggage and stepped solidly onto the sidewalk in front of the hotel. It wasn't shabby by any means, but just from the black and white photographs she had seen it barely held a candle to it's former glory. Not that she could complain; it wasn't like they were swimming in places like this in New York.   
"Welcome to the Halcyon hotel," the man at the front desk greeted as soon as she stepped inside.  
"It's beautiful in here," Lyra said, approaching the desk.   
"You must be Lyra Gaynor." She nodded. "I'm Peter, I'm the manager. We're so glad to have you."   
"I'm very glad to be here. I usually don't get to travel for work."   
"We usually don't get out of town guests, so we're both in luck." Peter helped get Lyra checked in and handed her the key to her room, 210, than offered to walk her up.  
"What kind of guests do you usually have, than? You said you don't get many from out of town."   
"Oh, we have a couple permanent residents, like in the old days. Mostly business men who are in far away hotels more than here. A couple of older widows who spend half the year with their children in other places."  
"Is there anyone else here right now?" Peter laughed.  
"There's about 10 guests around right now. Although during the day I'm sure it will just be you and the staff here, it's nobodies preference to hang around the place that much." Peter came to a stop in front of a room and gestured to the door. "Here you are. The restaurant downstairs opens at 5 for dinner, and I'll be at the front desk if you need anything."  
"Thanks." Lyra struggled with the lock on door. She dropped all her bags on the floor as soon as it shut behind her and went straight for the window. She had a good view of the alley outside. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out to see 4 texts from her boss. Suddenly, unpacking all of her luggage seemed very enjoyable. She sighed, flopping back onto the bed to call Steven and let him know she had made it in. In the mirror in the corner of the room, she saw the bathroom light flick on. She sat up and turned over her shoulder, but the bathroom was empty, of course. She got up to test if it was a motion sensor, but there was a switch just inside the door that worked perfectly fine. Weird. After a very long phone call with her boss, Lyra dug through her backpack to find her notebook and headed back downstairs to the lobby. Peter was helping another guest with something, but he waved as she descended the stairs.   
"That's one of our residents," he said as the man walked off towards the elevators that Lyra had been trying to avoid. Lyra looked over the board of keys hanging on the wall and noticed a row with only one missing.   
"Am I the only person on the second floor?" She asked.  
"...yes. I thought you might be interested in the history of your room." Lyra raised her eyebrows, urging him to continue. "An American radio reporter stayed in that room during the war. His name was Joe O'Hara, and he did a weekly radio broadcast in America from right here in the Halcyon."   
"Fascinating."   
"The room he broadcast from is actually still here. Mostly used for records storage now, but if you'd like to see it some time I can let you back there."  
"That would be amazing." Lyra had basically scored the jackpot for her article, but she now had a whole night of research ahead of her.  
"Do you need anything? Or were you just coming to ask questions?"  
"Just questions," Lyra said with a smile. "I'm very low maintenance. It's always questions." Lyra once again climbed the stairs to her room, going straight in and reluctantly unpacking her bags. It had to be done at some point. The light in the bathroom was on, and she thought she had left it off. But she couldn't be sure. She left it on, and as soon as her clothes were organized in the drawers, she went straight to the shower. She loved hotel showers, because her own shower at home was always broken in one way or another. Once she was clean and dried off, she decided it was time to start working. It was only 3, which gave her two hours of research time before dinner. Lyra opened her laptop at the desk in front of the window, and went straight to Google. Her first search: Joe O'Hara.


	2. Chapter 2

Lyra went down to the hotel restaurant at 6 o'clock, an hour later than she had planned. She had gotten overly invested in her research, and even brought her notebook down with her so she could frame her article while she ate.   
"I can't imagine those notes make very good company." She looked up from the plate of pasta she was eating to see Peter standing across from her. There was only one other person in the restaurant besides the two of them, the same man Peter had been talking to earlier.   
"I've just got so many ideas, I wanted to get them down."   
"So the article is going well, than?"   
"I think so. I did some research on Joe O'Hara, and I think I'm going to frame it in a way that mirrors his reports from here."   
"That sounds like a wonderful idea. Stop by the front desk on your way back up to your room, will you? I think I'll have something you'll like."  
"Sure." After her meal, Lyra went to the front desk to see Peter. He was coming down a hallway as she approached.  
"Ah, perfect timing." He lifted up the folder he was holding. "This is for you. Some of Mr. O' Haras old notes."  
"Are you serious?" Lyra asked in disbelief.  
"I am. That storage room is mostly stuff salvaged from the rubble the night this place was bombed. Those were sitting right on top of some boxes, didn't even have to look for them."  
"Wow," Lyra whispered, taking the folder.   
"I hope they help you with your article."  
"I'm sure they will."  
"I'll be here until 9 if you need anything." Back in her room, Lyra immediately sat down to look through Joe's notes. The very first page was a newspaper article that had been written about him and clipped out. It was probably mailed to him from someone at home, because it appeared to be from am American newspaper. The next couple pages were all titled with specific dates, with bullet point lists taking up the front and back of each sheet. Probably talking points from his radio broadcasts. The last page in the folder was a smaller sheet of paper, and it had been torn in half. The title of this one was 'Emma', and most of the other writing was obscured. Lyra wrote the name down in her own notebook. She had to start the actual writing of her article at some point, so she began typing up a basic description of the Halcyon's atmosphere, along with a timeline of it's history. By the time she was satisfied with her work, it was past 8:30. She was definitely a perfectionist, and it showed in the way she managed her time. She texted her boss a quick update on her article, than got up to dig through the dresser for her pajamas. She was halfway undressed when she heard something move behind her, and turned over her shoulder to see some of Joe's notes sliding off the desk and onto the floor. Before she could even take a step to pick them up, the bathroom light came on again. Peter seemed to have left out a very important detail about the goings on at the Halcyon. Halfway in her clothes and halfway in her pajamas, Lyra stomped down the hall and down the main stairs.   
"Peter," she said sweetly, leaning against the front desk. Peter, who had been searching for something under the counter, stood up.   
"Lyra. Can I help you with anything?"  
"Do you have ghosts here?" Something about her tone let Peter know that she already knew the answer. He sighed.  
"I hope they didn't scare you."   
"Scare- we're you ever going to tell me?" He didn't answer. "Okay. Have you ever seen them?"  
"Not seen, exactly."  
"So you've had experiences?" Peter looked around, almost like he wanted to make sure nobody was listening.   
"Do you want to talk about it?" She looked him over and realized he had his coat on. She glanced over at the clock on the counter. It was five minutes till nine.  
"You're leaving."   
"It's alright."  
"No. You should get to leave work on time."  
"Breakfast is at 6:30," he offered. Lyra nodded.   
"Okay."  
"You aren't scared though, really?"  
"Of course not. Just interested." Satisfied with her answer, Peter continued getting ready to leave. Lyra walked back up the stairs. She had gotten more exercise since this afternoon than in the past two years combined. As she got ready for bed, preparing to spend some time scrolling through her phone for fun rather than work, she got an idea. She left her notebook open to the next blank page, with a pencil in the middle. She didn't even know if she expected something to happen, but it was worth a shot. Lyra slept like a rock, and woke up the next morning to her alarm blaring from her phone right next to her head. It was already 6:15, and she hated being on time. She rushed to get dressed and was halfway down the hallway before remembering why she needed to be at breakfast this early. She hurried back to her room to collect her notebook and grab a notebook. She hesitated when reaching for her notebook, because where she had left it open to a blank page last night, it was now open to one of her pages with information on Joe O' Hara. She decided she didn't have time to think about it. Peter was waiting in the doorway of the restaurant.   
"You're early." Lyra checked her phone. It was 6:29.   
"I'm eager."


	3. Chapter 3

Peter refused to talk to Lyra before they had both eaten. He was looking out for her, but she had no idea if this was on the insistence of Steven when he had called to make her arrangements, or of his own will. Either way, it was sweet.   
"So who's gonna talk first?" He asked when Lyra was finished eating.   
"Well, since you're asking I feel like you want it to be me." Peter shrugged. "Go," Lyra insisted.  
"What happened to you?" He asked. "Last night?"  
"Just the lights in the bathroom turning on. Some papers falling off the desk."  
"So nothing scary? You're sure?"  
"I'm sure." Lyra promised. "Now it's your turn. What happened to you?"   
"All the staff have stories," Peter sighed. "Which, I'm guessing you'll want to hear now." Lyra nodded. "The overall story is that we are haunted by the victims of the bombing that destroyed this place in 1940."  
"Do you believe it?"  
"Have to. There's no other explanation."   
"So are you going to tell me what you've experienced?" Peter looked around, almost like he was afraid of getting caught, than told Lyra his story. He thought that the old manager was following him; things at the front desk or in his office were always being moved around or organized differently. He laughed when he told her that he wouldn't mind sorting things differently, if he could ever understand how whoever may be moving them wanted it done.   
"It's comforting, sometimes. You know you're never working alone."   
"That's a good point of view."   
"I suppose so. And as long as they don't mess with guests, we'll get along fine." Peter looked around the dining room again, which had a couple more guests in it now. "Why don't we go meet the kitchen staff now? I know they have much more interesting stories than mine." Lyra followed Peter back to the kitchen, where four people were all standing around a counter talking. The hotel restaurant had functioned only as a buffet since it's reopening in the early 70s, which eased the considerable demand on kitchen staff. Peter introduced Lyra to the group, than instructed everyone to answer whatever questions she had about the hotel. As Peter was getting ready to go back out before his shift started, Lyra opened her notebook and noticed something odd. On one of her pages of notes on Joe O'Hara, one line had been entirely scratched out. She managed to erase the pencil marks enough to read what she had written underneath.  
"Peter!" He turned back over his shoulder. "You said that Joe O'Hara stayed in room 210 when he was here."  
"Yes."  
"Did he stay there the entire time? Or was he ever in another room?" Peter had to think about it.  
"I think he might've been in a suite first, upstairs. Until his boss stopped paying for his stay." Lyra nodded, confident her question had been answered, and added a note into the margins of the page.   
"Thanks, Joe," she muttered under her breath. She heard a laugh coming from the doorway, but when she looked up, Peter was already gone. She decided to ask each staff member three questions: 1. Had they ever seen a ghost at the hotel? 2. Had they ever had any other experiences? 3. Who did they believe was really haunting the Halcyon? Once Lyra had collected all their answers, she headed back up to her room. She had left her phone on the desk when she went downstairs for breakfast, and her boss had been texting her for the past hour. She didn't know how to tell him her article was rapidly changing directions, so she didn't even bother reading the messages. Instead, she started typing up the kitchen staffs responses to her questions, making a separate list of any specific names that had been mentioned. One name, Emma, sounded familiar, and checking the rest of her notes, Lyra realized that that was the girl Joe had a whole page of his own notes about. With no last name to work with, she couldn't get much further on that topic, but hopefully more pieces would fall into place later. Once she had finished typing up all of her new information, she decided it was time to explore the hotel more. She gathered up her usual supplies: notebook, pens and pencils, and phone, and after thinking about it added the folder with Joe O'Hara's notes to her stack. She had already taken photos of all the pages, so she didn't really need them anymore, now matter how amazing it was to be holding these actual pieces of history. Lyra was thinking of some more questions for Peter when she got to the top of the stairs and realized that they were blocked off. She didn't know why, but she did know this meant she had to take the elevator. She wasn't the biggest fan of elevators on a normal day, so to say she was a little bit freaked out by the practically prehistoric things here was an understatement. Reluctantly, she crossed to the opposite end of the hallway and pressed the elevator button, waiting very impatiently for the doors to open. She had a friend in New York who's brother had fallen down an elevator shaft in an old hotel like this one and had nearly been crushed when an elevator car started coming down on top of him. Hearing that story could not have been less helpful in easing Lyras discomforts. Lyra let out a breath she had barely noticed she was holding when she stepped out of the elevator in the lobby. She approached Peter at the front desk.   
"Did you get all of your ghost questions answered?" He asked her.  
"I got good answers. I'll never have all of my questions answered because I'm always coming up with more questions."   
"Ah." She held out the folder of Joe's notes.  
"Here. I'm all done with these." Peter's face lit up.  
"No, keep them. That reminds me, I have a surprise for you."  
"Peter, we haven't even known each other for 24 hours and you're already spoiling me too much." Peter laughed.   
"I think this will help you with your work. Come on." Lyra followed Peter down a hallway. "I'm sorry about the stairs, by the way. One of our guests spilled ice cream on them and they haven't been cleaned yet. Although, most people prefer the elevators anyways."  
"I... don't trust the elevators. But I can't say my legs didn't enjoy the break."   
"Nothing has ever gone wrong with those elevators as long as I've worked here. They're perfectly safe," Peter assured. He stopped in front of an unlocked door and pushed it open, gesturing for Lyra to step inside. Shs couldn't get very far, because it was filled floor to ceiling with boxes. "The old radio room Mr. O'Hara broadcast out of. If we work together I figure we can get it organized by lunch so that you can work in here." He gestured to the boxes. "Lots of history in these if you look." Lyra was awestruck.   
"Peter... this is amazing, thank you. But you have to work."  
"Don't worry, no one's checking in today. And If anyone comes to the desk, I'll know. I left a note for the staff. It's not like I'm skipping out on my job, Lyra. Just cleaning out a storage room. A very managerial job, I think."   
"Peter... you are literally the greatest." Lyra found the chain to pull to turn on the single light bulb in the small room, and she and Peter got to work.


	4. Chapter 4

Cleaning the radio room went remarkably quickly with both Lyra and Peter working their hardest. Peter was called away a couple times by the front desk bell being rung, but besides that they had no interruptions. When he came back from one of these summonings, he declared it to be lunchtime, and Lyra declared their work to be sufficiently finished. Lots of the boxes filling the room had been empty, and once those were out of the way the job became simply organizing the remaining boxes by their contents. Lyra ended up having a whole wall stacked with guest information and newspaper clips, with the boxes in order based on the years they contained. It was a goldmine, and as long as she was in London, it was all Lyras.   
"I demand that you go out and get some lunch," Peter teased, as Lyra pushed herself up from the floor and closed the top of the box she was looking in, featuring information from the year The Halcyon opened. "You've been working since you arrived and you need to relax. At least for an hour."  
"What time is it?"  
"1."  
"Already?" Peter nodded. Lyra followed him out to the lobby, making sure to close the door behind her. She had her credit card in her phone case, which meant she didn't even need to make an additional trip up to her room before leaving the hotel for the first time since she had arrived. She noticed as she left that there wasn't a bell on the front desk. The first thing Lyra did when she came back from lunch, a very filling trip to McDonald's, was head straight to the radio room; her new office away from home. She read her way through the boxes there until dinner time, but in the four hours that took she had only made it to the hotels second owner, a man named Lord Hamilton. That brought her to the early 1920s, only 30 years into The Halcyons life. Peter was at the front desk when she passed, headed for the restaurant.   
"I have something for you when you get back," he called to her.   
"Peter. Not something else."  
"Just the key to the radio room. We wouldn't want anyone else getting in there and messing up our hard work." Peter wasn't at the desk when Lyra finished her dinner, but he had left the key for her. She stuck it in her pocket and headed straight back to work. Instead of reading more, she decided to go back through what she had already covered and begin making a timeline. This timeline would most likely end up being the centerpiece of her article, so she wanted to spend time on it. Unfortunately, either the hotel or, more likely, it's ghostly inhabitants, had other plans. At 7 o'clock, the one light in the room turned off with an audible click, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get it back on. It was like she couldn't even pull the chain.   
"Fine," she sighed sarcastically. "Work day's over." She left the room and locked the door behind her, even leaving her notebook on the desk inside for emphasis. Without even thinking about it, she walked straight towards the elevators. When she realized what she had done, she had already pressed the button, and her fear of embarrassment prevented her from just turning around and taking the stairs. Inside the elevator, she pulled her phone from her pocket, ready to scroll through the incessant texts Steven had been sending her on account of her ignoring him all day, when her worst fear came true. The elevator came to a slow stop, and just when Lyra realized that the doors weren't opening, the lights went out. She resisted the urge to scream. Instead, she closed her eyes, trying to breathe. She must have really been freaking out, because the sounds of her ragged inhales felt doubled, like there was someone else breathing beside her.   
"Lyra, it's alright. Calm down." When she opened her eyes, panicking more because she was definitely alone in the elevator when it stopped, something almost glowing in the corner caught her eye. She did scream this time, when she turned to her right to see a man in a suit, standing in the corner and wavering around the translucent blue edges. He looked just like a ghost in an old cartoon.   
"You're a ghost," she said. The man nodded. She looked him over again. "How do you know... you're Joe O'Hara."  
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you."


End file.
